Privacy Policy

For my Business Communication Technology class, I was instructed to read the Terms of Service and privacy policy for a social network on which I have an account. I chose Facebook.

There were two questions specifically that we were asked to answer: 

1. What does the policy say about how your information will be used.   
2. Do they say what will happen if there is a breach in security?

First of all, I would like to say that I have never read the Terms of Service or privacy policies for anything that I have joined (I think 99% of us don’t) and I remember why. It took me what felt like forever to sift through all of the information that Facebook gives you about what they do and don’t reserve the right to do with your information and how available it will be to everyone on the Internet. But, although I have been using Facebook for about 7 years, I learned a lot just by reading all of this.

To answer the first question, I read the privacy policy. Facebook uses your information to:

• keep Facebook products, services and integration safe and secure
• to protect Facebook's or other's rights on property
• provide you with location features and services, like telling you and your friends when something is going on nearby
• to measure or understand the effectiveness of ads you or others see
• to make suggestions to you and other users on Facebook (like suggesting friends to you and vise versa) 
• for internal affairs (troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement)

To answer the second question, I have to say no; Facebook does not say what will happen if there is a breach in security. All I could find is that they say:

"We do our best to keep your information secure, but we need your help. For more detailed information about staying safe on Facebook, visit the Facebook Security Page. We try to keep Facebook up, bug-free and safe, but can’t make guarantees about any part of our services or products."

I visited the "Facebook Security Page" and found that it is just another Facebook account that makes post's about changes to Facebook and its policies in regards to security.

I challenge all of you who are Facebook users to read the "Data Use Policy." Not only will it tell you how Facebook can use your info, I think it will make many of you realize that we really need to watch what we put on Facebook because it isn't as secret as we might thing (I know I did). So here is the link.

https://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy

Thanks for reading!